Innocent
by FelicityJay
Summary: They told her that The Strip was a slice of Heaven in the Wasteland, but they forgot to mention that it could just as easily be Hell. Rated for some disturbing content, minor spoilers, please R&R.


**Disclaimer: **First off: please be aware this contains spoilers if you haven't followed up Clanden's role in the 'How Little We Know' quest. That's really just cautionary, as it's not … integral to the entire game, but if you'd rather not know … apologies. That's … basically what this revolves around. ^^;; Anyways, this is just a quick oneshot … I've been working on a sequel to a story I wrote a couple of months back, and it sort of got me thinking about doing this. It's not much, but I guess I had a sudden urge, seeing as how I'm still playing around with the next chapter of 'It's A Sin To Tell A Lie' and all. Please be aware of some … disturbing subject matter, given the nature of the storyline. I don't own Fallout: new Vegas, or any of the characters, save for the OC in this story. Enjoy! =) … well … kind of …

* * *

They had told her about the Strip, and she had always marvelled at the wonder of it, the possibility that a city like it could exist anywhere in the Wasteland. Somewhere with a real draw, the neon lights, the gambling, simply the idea that people could go somewhere to relax and have fun, and do as they pleased, within reason. The idea that there was an escape from the harsh lands she had travelled from was enthralling to her.

This place, Gomorrah, had not been her first choice, she had to admit. For a moment, she had paused outside the tower known as the Lucky 38 and listened to a man in uniform tell her all he knew about it. Someone had been inside there, recently. A woman, she had assumed from the way in which he spoke of her, but she did not want to make assumptions, and then she had been taken by the arm, confronted by a man in a suit and fedora, dark eyes that she was never so sure she could trust but he has spoken as though he had known her. He had asked her if she wanted to make it big here, that a pretty young thing like her didn't need to become just another sore loser.

This was all it had taken. It was not really that she wanted to win big or anything, but he had complimented her, and this was all it took. Nomadic women hardly ever received such compliments, or perhaps the men she travelled with had never seen fit to comment on her through fear of her father, at the very least, but it was this that had caused her to follow him.

Without having seen any of the other casinos, of course, she didn't have very much to go on at all, so settled for the décor. She settled for just about everything about the place, and she had also settled quickly at a blackjack table. For the past half an hour, however, she had been playing her cards listlessly as she noticed the men staring at her; not all of them, of course, but most of them were wearing the same suits as the one who had brought her in, and while she did not outwardly shiver, she was curious. There was nothing special about her that she was aware of, and even if there was, she would have tried hard not to make it so obvious. She had done her best not to pay attention to them, but now her cards lay forgotten as one of them approached her.

"Pretty young thing like you wasting all her money at a blackjack table? Gimme a break." His accent was thick and he smelled of booze. She wondered if this was a standard for all of them.

"I thought … I was supposed to." He laughed, and the smell strengthened. The dealer had walked away from the table, in on the act, it seemed. She waited for a moment, almost daring them to say something, but she had forsaken her weapons at the door. She had forsaken her defences long before this, almost as soon as she had set foot on the strip. Someone offered his hand to her, not suited like the others; he was in a blue shirt and an argyle vest, and could not have stood out amongst the suited men more if he had been trying. Perhaps it wasn't his attire that was at odds with the rest of them, however. She saw the expression upon his face, warm and relaxed, not hostile and calculating. It was this that caused her to take his hand.

"I think what my friends are trying to say is that a girl like you would be well suited to one of the jobs we have here," She glanced up at the cages on either side of the room, barely clothed women dancing within them, faces blank and eyes dead, but their bodies illuminating the space in which they stood. "Oh, no. Not like that. Have you ever seen a movie?" She did not immediately want to narrow her eyes, because he seemed pleasant enough, a casual question. One of curiosity.

"No."

"Shame. Well, anyway, my friends and I make movies. I saw you across the room, and I thought you looked like quite the actress – I told them I had to employ you," She noticed that she was shaking, in spite of the fact that he was smiling. There was nothing about him that could have caused her to become suspicious, she was simply confused. A couple of hours ago, she had stepped into the casino ready to gamble, just like she had heard about. After that, she had planned to take some time looking at the other casinos on the Strip, taste alcohol for the first time, and dance with a handsome stranger, situation providing. Now, however, she had been asked to appear in a movie, and while she had no idea what one of those was, they made it sound like a big deal. "So what do you say? We could talk about this in my suite, over drinks, if you like?"

Anyone in the nomadic tribe she was a part of would have vouched for the fact that she had never been the most canny girl. She had been taught to be suspicious of everyone, but had ultimately come out too good natured. They had thought of dumping her in some shack with enough food and water to get her by plenty of times before, but ultimately, had never been able to do it. At least if she travelled with them she was safe from harm. When she had struck out on her own, she recalled, they had not taken kindly to her ideas. Still, here she was, sipping at the edge of a drinking glass, because in spite of how anxious she had been to try it, she really did not like the taste of alcohol as much as she thought she would. The man whose name, she had learned, was Clanden, had fashioned a drink for her from some Nuka-Cola and vodka. She could taste more of the vodka than she could Nuka-Cola, she was sure, because she had tasted Nuka Cola before, and it had never burned like this.

"You'd be paid, of course, and my friends have even offered you a room here in Gomorrah. Kind of them, huh?" She nodded, in the middle of another sip, trying to see if the burn would subside with each successive one. It did not. "We could start right away, too. If you want to see some of my work, though …" She followed his arm as it pointed towards a back room, where she assumed he kept the tapes. She was well aware that she was jumpy, having never been left alone in a room with a man before – not unless she counted her father, but this had been when she was young, and he had been caring for her. Her mother, he explained, had not been able to travel with them, and she had never bothered to ask why.

"What are these movies about?" She turned her head back to him a little too late to see him slipping the bottle inside his back pocket. She took another sip of her drink as he offered it to her, so as to be polite, wondering why he did not answer right away. He suddenly looked awkward, stuck for something to say, the same look as her father had had when she had asked him why her mother was not there, but at least he had explained it eventually. She took another sip, ignored the sudden sickness, thinking that this was all vodka did. She had seen members of the tribe drunk on a couple of occasions, and they had been sick.

"If you drink up, I'll tell you." She narrowed her eyes, this time for real, this time, suspicious. She had never before been suspicious of anyone. She placed the drink on the coffee table in front of her, not taking her eyes off him this time, not even as he glared down at her, picked the glass up, spilling the mixture on her scavenged blue dress and forcing the glass to her mouth. The drink burned her throat, more quantities of the alcohol being poured down it, more than she had ever before been forced to swallow. Her throat closed off, and she coughed, unable to do it, unable to swallow, but his hand clawed at her shoulder, forcing her back on the sofa.

The room was spinning, now. Maybe this was why the drunk tribesmen had been unable to keep their balance – with everything around them spinning, it must have been difficult to keep on going in the same direction all the time. But it hurt, too, her head pounded, though maybe this was because her head was being flipped back and forth by his sheer force … yes, it was probably that. She was not aware of herself screaming because everything rushed past her ears, a vacuum, no sound, no senses, she was numb to everything around her aside from the pain she felt in her head, and the way in which her throat burned. Her vision was blurred, darkened … more … more …

Cold. She would have never thought it possible in the Mojave. She had been to cold places before, walked on foot across most of the bombed United States, but she could not remember the cold. Her throat no longer burned, but her head still hurt, and she was hugging her knees up to her … chest …

"Good. You're awake." She looked over at Clanden and closed her eyes as soon as she did. Movies … this was what movies were, huh? She had to admit it, she preferred holotapes. She had not had the time to look around at the furnishing of the small room – had she been able to, she would have seen the blood splattered on the grey walls, seen the meat hooks before she smelled it. Death. Of course, death did not have a scent, but the smell of blood was more than enough to confirm that she was sitting naked in a room where humans had died. Humans … had died … death. She had seen death. She had never been responsible for it. She had never smelled it.

She was too tired to resist him as he grabbed her by the arm, but kept her eyes shut tightly because she did not want to see what she had never seen before. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she had been chosen to partake in this when she was so … _innocent_. She valued it, at least a little, because none of the other girls in the tribe had ever insinuated that she should do anything different. She had never been told that she was doing something wrong … she was not ready for commitment, yet. She was not ready to bear children.

Yet, she had been told tales that the Strip was heaven, or as close to heaven as anyone in the Wasteland would ever get. It was untouched by radiation, it was safe … she could not remember how many times she had prayed to be left alone by radscorpions and giant ants, especially the ones that breathed fire. She could not remember how many years she had felt as though a Deathclaw could eviscerate the camp at any given moment. Aside from the sin, the gambling, the fun, the one reason the Strip had tempted her so much was because it had supposedly been safe. This, however, seemed more like hell than like heaven.

"I was thinking we could start filming, now," She heard an electronic sound, knew that had had turned the filming device on because of what he had just said. "My friends and I have to keep to a schedule, so your cooperation in this was never really optional." She opened her eyes a fraction, just in time to see him coming towards her. It was not this she noticed, this time, so much as she saw the blood, felt herself being dragged towards the table in the centre of the room, slammed down upon its metallic surface. Before he obscured her view, she caught sight of the hooks hanging from the ceiling, the crimson liquid upon them dried. His last victim, his last kill … it must have been a while ago.

She screamed again. It didn't seem to frighten him … he whispered in her ear that the walls were soundproofed, that she could scream all she wanted, that it only … sickness, again, something that had nothing to do with the booze.

There had obviously been a reason the tribe had instructed her never to trust anyone. This must have been it. Her limited contact with the outside world had been what had landed her here, however, not her naivety, not her fear of saying no to someone. She had seen people being murdered, of course, this was something she was aware of … she had just never thought she would be one of the people being murdered. Not like _this_. Not on tape. She still marvelled at that, in spite of herself – people taped murders? What kind of entertainment was that?

As if her head had not been hurting enough. She felt it collide with the metallic surface, body aching, unable to move, trapped … blood. She smelled blood, again, felt it on her skin. The people watching would have loved it, and again, she felt nauseous, too afraid to actually vomit, caged by it. She could not yet resign herself. She could not yet give in, and yet questioned why she wasn't fighting … it wasn't in her nature to fight, though. The tribe had been made up of hunters and gatherers, and she had clearly never been a member of the former.

She crashed to the floor before she could even register the moment that he had stopped, her back feeling as though it had been broken in two. She edged towards the wall, unsure of why, aware that now, she was trailing blood along the already soiled floor. She coughed. Blood again. Had she bitten down on her tongue? Oh, yes, it was swollen …

"Now the fun begins," It was impossible to think that this was the same person as had told her she would have been perfect for a role in a movie, who had offered her drinks and assured her that she would be paid for her endeavours. It was as though there were two versions of him, and she could not say that she liked this version; she feared him, was repulsed by him, and in spite of it all, the gravity of her situation would not hit.

She knew that she was shaking. She knew that she was sweating. She knew that she was going to vomit, but something was stopping her from doing it, that she was filthy now and that there was no hope of her ever returning home. She knew that he had done things to her that she would never have imagined possible, and looked up, turned her head to catch another glimpse of the meat hooks that decorated the ceiling.

Would he hang her on those, then? Was she going to die like that? Or did he have something else in mind, something altogether more …

She must have lost a couple of teeth in that effort, a foot to her face. She knew that her nose was broken even before the blood started dripping into her mouth because the sudden, new wave of pain that lashed her face was irrepressible. He kicked her again, the gut, this time, and the teeth that she had lost came swimming out in the blood that she coughed up. A third kick. She wanted to die even as they were only minutes in. She had wanted to die … maybe she had wanted to die from the moment she had woken up in the room.

The fourth time he kicked her, she screamed more loudly than she had screamed before, and was aware that she had started sobbing. As though that would save her. After all that he had done, crying was no longer something that would garner his pity or cause him to fear. It was what he did for a living. The fifth kick—

The fifth kick did not come immediately, even as she dragged herself towards the far corner of the room, still leaving a trail of blood – thicker, this time, more pronounced against the floor. She heard the whisper of a name. Another one. A third. Was that what he was doing, right at this moment? Was this a standard practice in these kinds of films? Was it his job to announce the name of every woman he had killed until this point?

"And then, there's you," Her eyes widened. Time enough to see him grinning down, without a weapon, not just yet. A tray of objects glinted at her in the distance, but at the moment, he wanted her to scream again. "So beautiful, it's almost a waste to see you die. That's why I'm going to make it last." Yes, she was trembling again. Yes, she feared him, ever since he had attacked her in his suite she had feared him, but fear … her chest tightened in a way she had never known it to before. She was submerged, the waves crashing over her so that she could not escape from them, and this time, nobody was going to offer her his hand and save her from drowning. This was what it was to her, this sensation of falling through fluid, a bottomless, endless lake, unable to see the bottom and unable to feel it. She would hit it when she died.

"And then there's me," Her voice was muted, her throat sore, her tongue swollen in her mouth and bleeding so that he could barely understand what she was saying. She wanted him to end it, but she did not know how to taunt and tease. She tipped herself forward … pain … no matter. She would crawl towards those instruments and do it herself if she had to. She had heard the saying before, dying on one's own terms … if ever there was a time to do it, it was now. The recording device was forgotten in the opposing corner of the room, and it did not follow her, not as she crawled.

A dog. Yes. That was what he was kicking her like, but the end would come soon – it was this that kept her crawling, even as he kicked her and her head cracked against the wall beside her. Some of the blood flaked off it, the dried, black substance that belonged to his other victims, the ones he had just been naming. She felt the blade penetrate her hand and she slammed it down on the small stand that housed the metallic objects, but it was nowhere near large enough.

She could not get to her feet. Instead, she allowed the items to lacerate her hands, sharp razorblades and scalpels, until she fixed her bloodied palm around it.

She knew what the last thing she wanted to do was; the blade was rusty, it had been used so many times before to disembowel, slit throats, goodness knew what else. She held it up curiously, wondering why he had not tried to wrest it from her, grinned as her eye caught his, an indolent glance through her injuries, her agony, and just as he made to grasp the blade …

She didn't die straight away, not that she had expected to. She knew that the force of him crashing against her had been what had caused the knife to fully penetrate the plate of bone that was her chest, but she had started it. She had placed it there and was dying on her terms. Without an ounce of medical knowledge in her mind, she did not know what it was, exactly, that had been done, but she could tell that she would be dead soon. It was impossible for her not to be. Even as he wrenched the blade out of her bare chest, she knew it, unable to grin any longer, slumped against the table that housed his weapons.

Three minutes after the girl died, Clanden continued to stand there, staring at her body. Then, the initial surprise at a victim having fought back, and perhaps berating himself a little that he had not used stronger drugs on her, he dragged the body to the table, laid her out like a corpse in a morgue, and grabbed the metallic instruments that had clattered to the floor the moment her body had given in.


End file.
